AZ wants to kill me

I found my very first (and hopefully last) scorpion in my house the other day. I don't know what kind it was but it looked like this:

This is a bark scorpion that is the only scorpion considered to be life threatening. I found this little bad boy in my kitchen, in close proximity to my 4 year-old's chair.

I had just put my baby to bed and decided that my kitchen needed to be cleaned in a bad way. I had the weird thought that I should put shoes on. So I did and started cleaning.

I had seen this scorpion without seeing it; I thought it was just a big crumb on the floor. After all, it was by my son's chair at the dinner table and he's not the cleanest person in the world (what boy is?). I brushed it with the broom and it came alive! It uncurled and started walking!! Before it registered in my brain what it was, I thought, "How weird. That crumb is walking."

THAT CRUMB IS WALKING?!

I crouched down so I could get a good look at it and stared at it for a good minute, willing it to just disappear. I couldn't muster squishing it with my shoe (I had heard stories from a sister in Texas about how crunchy scorpions are) so I grabbed a fly swatter and obliterated that scorpion.

Have you seen this ecard yet?

Exactly how I felt.

I swept it up into my pile and had a sinking feeling that this scorpion was a bionic scorpion and would soon pop open like most cockroaches and come after me. shiver

I'm happy to report that the scorpion did not come back alive, I haven't seen another one for the past couple of days, and that we had a pest control guy over that very day to spray our entire house, inside and out.

recipe: gyozas

Last week was Joe's birthday. We invited some of his friends over and fed them gyozas and Thai noodles with jerk chicken.

Holy smokes. I LOVE gyozas! One of my brother-in-laws, who learned from his Japanese grandmother, showed me how to make them when I visited them a long long time ago. I've only  made these little bad boys a handful of times because they take FOREVER to make! This time, however, we recruited the help of Joe's friends and made them earn their keep by wrapping all 3.5 pounds of meat! I'm the best hostess ever!

Want the recipe? Umm... okay.

Gyozas
1 pound ground beef
1 pound ground pork --I hope it's obvious that I doubled the recipe for our friends.
3 stalks green onion, chopped
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 TBSP garlic (powder OR actual vegetable)
1/4 cup corn starch
Sweet Chili Sauce (I use Mae Ploy)
Square Wraps (I use Azumaya. This time I found them in the organic section of my grocery store)
**Over the years that I've made these, it has been hit and miss on the stores having the chili sauce and the square wraps. I usually find the sweet chili sauce in the oriental section of the grocery store. The wraps are usually refrigerated and found in the organic section of the grocery store. Good luck! And happy hunting!! 

1. Mush together pork and beef until well combined.
2. Brown meat with chopped green onions and garlic IF using the actual vegetable, NOT THE POWDER.
3. Drain fat.
4. Sprinkle soy sauce so it coats the entire top of the meat. --The meat turns a dark brown.
5. Sprinkle corn starch over meat until thickens. --This could take more or less than a 1/4 cup.
6. Remove from stove and let cool.
7. Place small spoonful of meat in middle of wrap and seal. --The trick to sealing the wraps is to have a small bowl of water. Dip your finger in the water and wet two sides of the wrappers. Make sure and seal the wrapper so it doesn't fall apart when frying in the oil.
8.  Fry gyozas in heated oil.
9. Serve with sweet chili sauce. --I usually make ham fried rice with this.

Does this recipe make sense? I'm super good at following recipes, but I'm not that great at making them. If you try them, let me know how they turned out!

book review: A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days

"A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days" was a little disappointing to me. There were several insights I walked away with from this book, but overall, I would not recommend this book to someone who wanted different insights to the End Times that had a knowledge of the Bible.

It seemed like Jonathan Bernis' target audience was to the Jewish people or to members of his own congregation. He kept mentioning the house of Israel as only consisting of Jews, or the house of Judah, but there are 10 other houses that make up Israel and each house has a job to do before Jesus Christ comes back the second time; not just the Jews.

Bernis' outlook on the Garden of Eden and Satan's role in this world was fascinating. I grew up reading the Bible and have attended regular church meetings. I've heard the story of the Garden with Eve, the apple, the serpent; all is very familiar. Bernis taught me that Satan has this demented vision that he can still win. And because he believes this, and he he knows that if he doesn't win, his time is drawing to a close and his end is near.

I'm not doing this description justice. If you are going to read "A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days" read the first 5 chapters and that should be sufficient. I received a free copy of this book from Bethany House to review.

potty talk

"Do I look funny, mom?" How would you respond to that? Me? I laughed and grabbed my phone. 

Corban turns 5 in September and is barely getting the hang of potty training. When I got pregnant with baby #2, I DID NOT want to change 2 bummies. No, thank you! I pushed him hard when he was 2 but he is kind of the stubborn sort and refused. I was too sick to fight that battle, so he went back into diapers. I tried again when he was 3. And again when he was 4 and he got it!

Something clicked and he has been doing really good. Notice the key word, "has". Recently he has been pooping in his underpants and pooping on the floor right next to the toilet! I make him clean up his own messes and his TV privilege gets revoked. Just to show me, I swear, as he's cleaning the poop up in the bathroom, he'll pee all over the floor! He's even told me, "See. That's what you get when you make me clean up my poop."

I have tried every method out there, I swear. And they would work for about a day. What potty training method worked for you?

happy happy birthday

My man is in his 30s! 

Happy birthday to the greatest husband, friend, and papa! Love you lots.

cheap doesn't always mean good

Never. Ever. Ever buy cheap spray paint. There are things that I'll buy that the no-name brand is fine. But never, never, never buy cheap spray paint! I can't say that enough.

I'm making a project inspired from Pinterest that requires red, white, and blue paint. So, me being on a student-budget, I opted for the cheap, less than $2 spray paint, thinking I had fooled the system and was pulling a fast one. Oh, boy. The ENTIRE can of white paint barely covered the surface one time! The nozzle was so hard to press down that my arm gave up and my finger popped up like a timer in a turkey. I had to use my other hand to hold down the finger of my original hand!

I'm happy to say that I have successfully painted the white and blue parts and now am moving on to the red. Pictures as soon as I complete my project.

will you be my valentine?

You're jealous aren't you?

Joe and his pharmacy classmates blister packed treats for their valentines. He hid it from me for a good 4 days before he left it out on a shelf by a bright yellow flower that he was planning on giving me the next day for Valentine's Day!

Of course, I saw it.

I tried to ignore it and pretend I didn't see it, but I finally asked him about it. Because, come on, I'm not good at keeping surprises and if I know you have a present for me, it almost kills me to wait until the specified day to open it. So, I took my blister packed treats and watched a show.

How was your Valentine's Day?

happy heart day

Having a house is sure good to my crafting obsession. Now I have places to store said crafts and places to hang said crafts. 

I have never been a HUGE fan of Valentine's Day. It could be because I've always been a tad socially awkward and never had a boyfriend to celebrate the holiday with, but I'm also not big into flowers, or chocolates, or stuffed animals.

What do you do for Valentine's day?

bitter gum

Little Miss Jovi is teething.

Luckily, she still eats and sleeps pretty good so everyone else is relatively happy. She is constantly drooling. She reminds me of the dog on "Turner and Hooch" (too young to remember that movie? Check it out. It's a good one.). Because she's had a constant stream of drool, her neck gets pretty caked and coated. It doesn't smell very good either. 12 down. 8 to go. *groan*

just because

I'd lay in there too if I fit.

beez

We came home from mini-vacay and found these in our drive way. 

I found out from one of my bee-expert uncles that this was a swarm of bees, not a hive. It had been super cold in Arizona. This swarm didn't have a hive to go to so they died. Every single one of them. 

I must admit that I had some sick nightmares about sweeping the bees into the garbage, them thawing out, and then a swarm of bees coming out of my garbage can and stinging us! I made the husband clean the up.  

craft: nut wreath preview

I've been on a wreath kick lately. I have made A LOT of wreaths. And to the dismay to my husband, I made most of them before we moved to Arizona. "Wife. Why did you make so many wreaths for us to pack and move?"

After we moved into our house, one of said wreaths became disfigured. I followed the advice of a pin and used a pool noodle to make a nut wreath. I totally love the idea of a pool noodle as a wreath form because:

1) they're cheap

2) they're cheap

Unfortunately, the nuts I used were too heavy for the form and bent it completely out of shape. True to myself, I instantly gave up on that project and threw it away. Again to my husband's dismay, he wondered why I didn't try bending the form back in place. I did try a whole 5 minutes and when it instantly didn't bend back into place I threw it out.

Fast forward to today. I made my whole family walk up to a local park and collect an ice cream gallon bucket full of these nuts. I have no idea what they are, but they're cool and will make a fantastic wreath. This time, I'll get a heavier form. 

swimming in January

Yep. One of the benefits of living in a warms state. We can go swimming in the middle of January! Be jealous. Very jealous.

christmas cactus

I am infatuated with this plant! See my post here. It started blooming when we moved to Arizona, but it really popped open once we moved into our first house. Plants have always fascinated me; I think there are a  lot of parallels in the natural kingdom that connects us with God. This thins was barely living in Utah, doing okay in Green Valley, and absolutely loving Sahuarita!

craft: clothespin wreath

This was a Pinterst find that I absolutely fell in love with.

I used to live by my parents who had an AMAZING craft room. My mom had kept a box full of old clothespins from back in the day when she actually hung her laundry out on a clothesline. I grabbed half of what she had and I still had left overs! I also had a bunch of little crafty pins that I used around the inside.

I attached all the clothespins and found out that they did not want to stay where I wanted them; they were slipping and a sliding all over the place. Grrr. So, I pulled out my handy-dandy (did I mention I have 2 kids that watch a lot of public television?) glue gun and glued all of those suckers exactly where I wanted them to go. And wouldn't you know that one of them STILL hangs there limply.

This little craft has yet to be hung on the wall in my laundry/office. Joe is a bit of a perfectionist, and I, well, am not. I've hung pictures in the past by guestimating where the picture looks best as I hold it a few inches away from my face. I then guestimate again where the hooks are and hammer away. I only realize AFTER I try to hang it up that it is not, in fact, the place I wanted it and start the whole process over again. At my worst, I've put 3 nail holes in the wall for one picture. Needless to say, I'm not allowed to hang pictures any more.

i didn't do it

There are a couple of things I hope you can tell from looking at this picture:

1) It is December (the lights on the floor).

2) It is hot enough in said month I had to open the window.

3) The blinds are broken.

I was trying to tape (yes, tape. I didn't have anything else.) the lights around the window. I got hot. I opened the blinds to open the window and the blinds wouldn't go back down! The more I tried pulling on the stupid pull-string the more broken the blinds became! It was all very quite traumatizing. Our neighbors are literally about 6 feet from our front door. I'm sure they got a good laugh at me that day watching me try to close those cursed blinds. 

The way I fixed them was genius! I cut the strings! Joe doesn't know this, I think. All the blinds in our house are crappy any way, so it wasn't a big lose. Now, the blinds just limply sit on the window sill. Oops.

la la

Jovi recently turned 18 months old. Can you believe it?! She is such a fun little girl to have in our home. She is reactive, sweet, sassy, energetic, colorful, and such a princess. And she LOVES to dance! Music doesn't even need to be playing for her to bust a move. She's starting to say a few words, but most is not distinguishable. 

christmas decorations

We moved into our new house the beginning of December. The first thing I did was set up the Christmas tree and get my decorations out, ready to set up where I wanted them. I love Pinterest. I may have been addicted to it a few months ago, but I guess I'm a recovering addict. I wanted to do one of those Christmas wreaths with the ornaments all around it in its magnificence. But it just didn't look good. Yes, I bought all the supplies, had it completely finished, and I did not like it. AT ALL. So, I took four of the ornaments that I had purchased. Got a frame that was lying around. And made this little beauty that I love much more.

"What about the ornaments that weren't used?" you ask. Don't worry. They are tucked away ready to decorate our tree outside next Christmas.

christmas

Christmas has come and gone. All that is left are the few extra pounds I gained and the memories. 

 We had a ward party where they offered to take family photos. Obviously, next time Joe should kneel, or sit, or do anything to get closer to us. :)

 We had a ward dinner, activities, and a show. Corban was more interested in eating the candy then he was in decorating our ginger bread house.

 Joe took over and really did a great job with our gingerbread house. Or, I guess it looks more like a church than anything else.

Me and Jovi. She had been having serious diaper rash since July. It really flared up that night and we had to go home early.

The kids in our ward put on the live version of Jesus Christ's birth. It was so sweet and tender and, yes, I cried a little.

book review: To Honor and Trust

I am a book reviewer for Bethany House publishers. It isn't paid but you do get free books! I got my first book just yesterday. I give "To Honor and Trust" by Tracie Peterson and Judith Miller 4 out of 5 stars.

I picked up the book a little skeptical, after all, this was THE very first Christian novel I have ever read, and was surprisingly entertained. "To Honor and Trust" is basically a softer version of "Dirty Dancing": set in a resort for the upper class to spend their vacation; a lower class works hard to support said upper-class including activities such as golf, tennis, and entertainment; lower and upper class mix in a fun/forbidden romance; mystery and intrigue abound with supporting characters; and insert a few crisis' for the main characters. Toward the end of the book, I kept waiting for someone to say, "No one keeps Callie in a corner. No one."!

Some of the characters weren't defined well enough and I had a hard time keeping some of the minor characters straight. It was a fun, easy, quick read. "To Honor and Trust" is full of romance, intrigue, sport, and mystery.